Sweet sketches dude.
Are you drawing those arms from memory? I think it's good exercise to first draw stuff from reference then do it again from memory, because I am noticing a few anatomical errors on the arms, which can be a problem if you keep drawing them over and over again without referring to reference as it will become a habit to draw them that way.

hey hey, people
griffinly: thank you !! Your way more dedicated than i am , my SB is so old, and i havent posted a lot... and the progress is slow, but im happy to see that im showing a bit more dedication lately , its hard with work to spend time drawing.

HK : Whats up man, glad you commented on those arms, they are not from mind but from ref lol, from a how to draw manga book,,, i should probably stop doing studies from that book and go back to loomis, the thing is that i tried to learn the muscle name in french rather than in latin ( as in loomis book ) because i seem to remember the name better.. but nevermind ill stop using that book. Please keep commenting on my stuff !! By the way, i saw one of your old post about eye strain... how did you deal with it cauz i seem to have the same problem...

Digitalinkrod: Thank you, the road stuff was done from life while in the bus at night I was lucky enough to have the first seat.

Lateman: Hey, thanks, im not aiming for any style, i think its just the bad habbit of always drawing the same thing over and over.. i love tentacles and stripes tho , cauz they are fun to render

K, this update is not too great, havent had that much time this week... and changed my glasses because my eyes are really hurtin a lot... looks like i got hypermetropia.... so i need reading glasses.. i got strenght 1.0 now.. Not too sure how to deal with drawing from life when you wear those glasses, need to look with your eyes at the subject, and thru the glasses at your sheet ??? Ackkk...
So some arms.. from Loomis this time.. and a quick sketchs of a girl from ref.
Have a nice day!

nice studies man. I would try drawing the outlines for the arms, getting the overall shape down, and then going in with the individual muscles, at the moment you seem to be sacrificing overall form for delineating all the muscle groups. The girl study looks great, nice weight to the figure.

Crazy amount of SB goodness and improvement along the way. I really like the mech on page 9 and your studies are coming along. I have to say the strongest thing you share in your sketchbook imo are you environments. I really like the color choices in a lot of them. Keep up the hard work!

I think the black is a bit extreme on that lady and calls for way too much attention...also, it's pure black and shows no form unlike the rest of the drawing. the black would work if the whole drawing was all black-and-white, but now it's just inconsistent.

I don't know, man. there's something in your work that makes me feel uncomfortable. In my opinion you tend to rely too much on facts rather than the general mood and feel. a factual presentation is important for the technician, but hardly of any use to the artist in the long run. when I look at your work I just see the surface, and I feel that there's nothing inside. I just see a subject you're depicting, the "fact" of it...but the hollowness is unsettling.

look at Craig Mullins' work, for instance. that guy picks up a simple subject and makes a marvellous painting of it. on paper the subject matter can be as simple as "a robot", "mermaid lying on a rock", "a man's face", etc. but he has the ability to pump the paintings full of emotion...he makes something out of nothing, so to speak. and that is indeed the job of the artist. I think you should spend time looking at paintings of old masters, Mullins' work or anything that you like, and think why it looks so good. I'm sure you've already done this a lot, and so have I...but do it more. so will I.

this stuff is a bitch to put into words because I'm just starting to realize these things myself...in any case, it's more about composition that anything else. and thinking about things in terms of emotion. facts like perspective, resemblance to the subject matter, anatomy, correct value and color should come naturally and a master should not pay much attention to them if he wants to achieve a striking painting.

look through to the emotional world of a painting and find the adjectives that determine it...then think about how those adjectives relate to each other and what combinations of them seem to be the most interesting ones...for example, a painting could have 90% calmness and 2% violence just to create some contrast (which creates interest and is a powerful tool to create content to the picture. also, using a bit of ambiguity is great..the viewer is allowed to create his own storylines for the picture - thus he creates more content all by himself). to me, everything sprouts from this emotional composition. pictorial composition is just about transferring the emotional composition into visible form, and in a way I consider it a technical, "factual", process.

I'm sorry if I didn't make much sense here, I'm trying to realize this stuff thoroughly myself but it's like trying to swallow a whole apple at once. it's huge. maybe I'll have this stuff figured out in a few years, or a decade...hope you don't find this post offensive in any way, I'm a bit in a dry mood right now.

by the way, I really like posts 316 and 333. the paintings in those posts show emotional content, but I still feel that they could be taken even further to really strike the viewer in the balls..heh. keep it up.

hey folks, been really busy lately, felt like i slacked a lot, lost some motivatuon too, not sure why, feel like im getting old and that i should stick to my job... bahhhhhhh.

So here' an updatye not worthy of a 2 week without posting, no pencil this time cauz i dont have much to scan either.. I need more discipline, so feel free to kick my ass without mercy. At least some good news, i bought a laptop, so i will be able to paint at home and not only during lunchtime.

Ill take some time to reply since I love you all and its xmas soon

Ruukhis: Hey man, i appreciate the time you took to write such a reply, i wasnt offensed by your post But i dont agree with you at 100%
I agree that emotion is reallyu important in art, you need to add your personal touch to what you do... but I dont think it cant be learned. I dont think you can force emotion in anything, it has to come naturally.. About my work, you said some of it has emotion and that a lot of them has none, that its only techincal... most of my recent stuff are studies, the girl sketch and most of the recent envirios are studies... meant to learn technical stuff , to add to your arsnenal of tools for later use when you paint or draw from imagination.. I dont think adding emotion or personal stylisation to a study is primordial to me at this point... I think nature uis enough of a challenge to reproduce and to learn from.. i dont want to hide technical flaws behind fancy brushstroke, i know i lack a lot of structural knowledge and i want to learn that first. You mentioned Mullins, im a big fan of his work, but before he reached that point, im sure he made sure to understand everything he was [painting... you cannot hide lack of knowledge with fancy rendering or fancy brushstroke. Also , in conceptual art, i think clarity of design, and originality of concept, is far more useful to the person who will use the concept than the empotion the artist was trying to put into his piece, its important to understand the difference between concept art and gallery stuff in my opinion., but dont get me wrong here, i agree that mood and ambience is 100% necessary lets say for environement or specific character identity. So yeah, im focus mostly on the technical stuff.. i dont worry too much about what i could pull out of my mind because ive been doing it too much, neglecting life drawing... and you need to understand the truth to help you draw whats in your mind. I dont know if you've read Ala prima from Richard Shmidt , i found this book really interesting and I really respect his vision of nature and art. Im pretty drunk on baileys right now so i hope im not being to harsh ahahaha, i hope you will reply to this with your own arguments

Cyprinus: Hey thanks, yours are better but thanks
Wheezy: Thanks for commenting, i hope there will still be improvement along the way.
Wookie: JHey buddy, thanks a lot for the crit, its the kind of comments i really like to have since i dont hang too much with other afrtist in real life to share knowledge and things like that... Your sketchbook is an inspiration, merry xmas to you
LordM: Thanks !
Vicker: TY ")
Myst: Thanks !

This sketchbook is looking good man! Keep up the great work! you're doing lots of great studies.
Me personally, I would love to see a finished piece from your imagination again.. but i'll be patience if i have to haha
Happy holidays btw

thanx digitalinkrod and luckers, Ill try to do other stuff than studies in the days that come. Thans for subscribing, ill try to not disapoint
quick life studies from this morniong, first time i do this kind of stuff,,, does it look too low contrast ? im not sure if my colors are correct on my new laptop screen. Also i dont have my brush set , so i had to work with the round brush , i love the round brtush !

Awesome life study man, got the chrome effect down real nice. Sketches and anatomy are looking good, I don't see too much to crit. The trees in that last landscape have an awesome texture, but something about that composition seems to make the brushstrokes on the mountains feel out of place, not sure if it's their sharpness or lack of texture or what, but they feel off.

Out of curiosity, what laptop are you using? Is that a sony vaio? I see that green light reflecting off the side of that metallic thing, and it reminds me a lot of my laptop.